Game Theory Meets Network Security and Privacy

This survey provides a structured and comprehensive overview of the research contributions that analyze and solve security and privacy problems in computer networks by game-theoretic approaches. A selected set of works are presented to highlight the application of game theory in order to address different forms of security and privacy problems in computer networks and mobile applications. The presented works are classified into six main categories based on their topics: security of the physical and MAC layers, application layer security in mobile networks, intrusion detection systems, anonymity and privacy, economics of network security, and cryptography. In each category, security problems, players, and game models are identified and the main results of selected works, such as equilibrium analysis and security mechanism designs are summarized. In addition, a discussion on advantages, drawbacks, and the future direction of using game theory in this field is provided. In this survey, we aim to provide a better understanding of the different research approaches for applying game theory to network security. This survey can also help researchers from various fields develop game-theoretic solutions to current and emerging security problems in computer networking

An Approach to Guide Users Towards Less Revealing Internet Browsers

When browsing the Internet, HTTP headers enable both clients and servers send extra data in their requests or responses such as the User-Agent string. This string contains information related to the sender’s device, browser, and operating system. Previous research has shown that there are numerous privacy and security risks result from exposing sensitive information in the User-Agent string. For example, it enables device and browser fingerprinting and user tracking and identification. Our large analysis of thousands of User-Agent strings shows that browsers differ tremendously in the amount of information they include in their User-Agent strings. As such, our work aims at guiding users towards using less exposing browsers. In doing so, we propose to assign an exposure score to browsers based on the information they expose and vulnerability records. Thus, our contribution in this work is as follows: first, provide a full implementation that is ready to be deployed and used by users. Second, conduct a user study to identify the effectiveness and limitations of our proposed approach. Our implementation is based on using more than 52 thousand unique browsers. Our performance and validation analysis show that our solution is accurate and efficient. The source code and data set are publicly available and the solution has been deployed

Reliability and Efficiency of Vehicular Network Applications

The DSRC/WAVE initiative is forecast to enable a plethora of applications, classified in two broad types of safety and non-safety applications. In the former type, the reliability performance is of tremendous prominence while, in the latter case, the efficiency of information dissemination is the key driving factor. For safety applications, we adopt a systematic approach to analytically investigate the reliability of the communication system in a symbiotic relationship with the host system comprising a vehicular traffic system and radio propagation environment. To this aim, the¬ interference factor is identified as the central element of the symbiotic relationship. Our approach to the investigation of interference and its impacts on the communication reliability departs from previous studies by the degree of realism incorporated in the host system model. In one dimension, realistic traffic models are developed to describe the vehicular traffic behaviour. In a second dimension, a realistic radio propagation model is employed to capture the unique signal propagation aspects of the host system. We address the case of non-safety applications by proposing a generic framework as a capstone architecture for the development of new applications and the efficiency evaluation of existing ones. This framework, while being independent from networking technology, enables accurate characterization of the various information dissemination tasks that a node performs in cooperation with others. As the central element of the framework, we propose a game theoretic model to describe the interaction of meeting nodes aiming to exchange information of mutual or social interests. An adaptive mechanism is designed to enable a mobile node to measure the social significance of various information topics, which is then used by the node to prioritize the forwarding of information objects

RFID Technology in Intelligent Tracking Systems in Construction Waste Logistics Using Optimisation Techniques

Construction waste disposal is an urgent issue for protecting our environment. This paper proposes a waste management system and illustrates the work process using plasterboard waste as an example, which creates a hazardous gas when land filled with household waste, and for which the recycling rate is less than 10% in the UK. The proposed system integrates RFID technology, Rule-Based Reasoning, Ant Colony optimization and knowledge technology for auditing and tracking plasterboard waste, guiding the operation staff, arranging vehicles, schedule planning, and also provides evidence to verify its disposal. It h relies on RFID equipment for collecting logistical data and uses digital imaging equipment to give further evidence; the reasoning core in the third layer is responsible for generating schedules and route plans and guidance, and the last layer delivers the result to inform users. The paper firstly introduces the current plasterboard disposal situation and addresses the logistical problem that is now the main barrier to a higher recycling rate, followed by discussion of the proposed system in terms of both system level structure and process structure. And finally, an example scenario will be given to illustrate the system’s utilization

Off-Street Vehicular Fog for Catering Applications in 5G/B5G: A Trust-based Task Mapping Solution and Open Research Issues

One of the key enablers in serving the applications requiring stringent latency in 5G networks is fog computing as it is situated closer to the end users. With the technological advancement of vehicles’ on-board units, their computing capabilities are becoming robust, and considering the underutilization of the off-street vehicles, we envision that the off-street vehicles can be an enormously useful computational source for the fog computing. Additionally, clustering the vehicles would be advantageous in order to improve the service availability. As the vehicles become highly connected, trust is needed especially in distributed environments. However, vehicles are made from different manufacturers, and have different platforms, security mechanisms, and varying parking duration. These lead to the unpredictable behavior of the vehicles where quantifying trust value of vehicles would be difficult. A trust-based solution is necessary for task mapping as a task has a set of properties including expected time to complete, and trust requirements that need to be met. However, the existing metrics used for trust evaluation in the vehicular fog computing such as velocity and direction are not applicable in the off-street vehicle fog environments. In this paper, we propose a framework for quantifying the trust value of off-street vehicle fog computing facilities in 5G networks and forming logical clusters of vehicles based on the trust values. This allows tasks to be shared with multiple vehicles in the same cluster that meets the tasks’ trust requirements. Further, we propose a novel task mapping algorithm to increase the vehicle resource utilization and meet the desired trust requirements while maintaining imposed latency requirements of 5G applications. Results obtained using iFogSim simulator demonstrate that the proposed solution increases vehicle resource utilization and reduces task drop noticeably. This paper presents open research issues pertaining to the study to lead..

Advances in Information Security and Privacy

With the recent pandemic emergency, many people are spending their days in smart working and have increased their use of digital resources for both work and entertainment. The result is that the amount of digital information handled online is dramatically increased, and we can observe a significant increase in the number of attacks, breaches, and hacks. This Special Issue aims to establish the state of the art in protecting information by mitigating information risks. This objective is reached by presenting both surveys on specific topics and original approaches and solutions to specific problems. In total, 16 papers have been published in this Special Issue